Golem Rage – Brawling and Auto-Running Blended into Fun

Golem Rage is a combination of two very different genres that turns several conventions on its side, all while you beat everything up.

As the name suggests, Golem Rage is about a raging Golem – your titular Golem is trying to escape from its evil masters, forcing you to fight through a myriad of enemies, traps and obstacles that all seek to keep you contained.

This begins to sound like a stereotypical auto-runner, wherein your character constantly moves to the right of the screen while you alter course to avoid obstacles. However, Golem Rage includes aspects of a brawling game by allowing you to not only dodge obstacles or enemies, but to actually hit and destroy them.

From the very start of the game, you’re being instructed on how to roll into, smash or grab enemies, all to provide the most efficient method to escape their clutches and get to the end of the level.

This addition of brawler gameplay is interesting because it doesn’t actually tie you to it – you don’t have to beat up a certain number of enemies; you just need to escape. This allows you to simply dodge all enemies if you wish, playing a more passive, friendly Iron Giant type Golem, rather than a rage-induced killing machine that is far more fun to play.

This allows you to simply dodge all enemies if you wish, playing a more passive, friendly Iron Giant type Golem, rather than a rage-induced killing machine that is far more fun to play.

Singular enemies can be picked up and “removed”, groups of enemies can be killed with a three-punch combo and rolling is just plain fun – just barrel into everyone and they get stunned, allowing you to move away.

The main motivation behind removing enemies is that their attacks not only damage you, but slow down your escape. Thus, it makes a lot of sense to obliterate everyone in your path, so that they don’t try to get in your way.

Golem Rage is filled with lots of amusing bits of humour and references, including Harry Potter, Star Wars and everything a slightly nerdy teenager would squeal in pleasure at hearing. The jokes can feel a little ham-fisted in at times, but the overall impression is of a giddy game designer just really desperate for you to laugh and enjoy his or her game.

Golem Rage’s controls are simplistic enough; the aforementioned attacks are controlled by directional swiping on the screen, as well as access to a few low-key buttons on the bottom of the screen to queue up attacks. Everything is really about directional control, avoiding obstacles and timing your punches and special abilities just right to destroy everything.

Golem Rage is an interesting experiment in the combination fo both brawlers and auto-runners – it takes elements of both games and mixes it together to create a silly game that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Golem Rage is an interesting experiment in the combination fo both brawlers and auto-runners – it takes elements of both games and mixes it together to create a silly game that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Golem Rage is easy to pick up, easy to play and enjoyable to progress through, with decently quick levels and achievable goals at the start.